Arctic coastline crumbling due to effects of climate change, says German study

Monday, April 18th 2011 - 06:38 UTC

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Arctic coastlines are crumbling away and retreating at the rate of two metres or more a year due to the effects of climate change, it has been claimed. In some locations, up to 30 metres of the shore has been vanishing every year. Read full article

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GeoffWard
Arctic coastal erosion is a result of melting of permafrost.

Melting of permafrost enables the methane clathrates to release gaseous methane.

Methane is x30 more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2.

Loss of arctic ice is accelerating the process of anthropogenic Global Warming.

Classic positive feedback system - usually characterised by irreversibility until the cusp is reached, and then the climate flips into a different stable state.

If it is a hot stable state (much the more probable condition), the entropy conditions make it, in practice, irreversible.

So, on human time-scales, permanent heat.

What happens to human societies when the standing freshwater evaporates away and frozen terrestrial freshwater melts ?
Apr 18th, 2011 - 08:38 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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